Evidence from YouTube - The 2015 Rugby World Cup and the marketing of betting on social media

Dear Reader,

As mentioned in my last post http://t.co/hzEpBlVnrv, I am currently investigating how betting is being marketed on social media by 12 gambling companies - Ladbrokes, William Hill, Coral, Paddy Power, betfair, bet365, 888sport, betfred, Stan James, skybet, bwin and BetVictor during the 2015 Rugby World Cup. 

In this post, I'll present my interim findings following my analysis of content uploaded to YouTube.  The data presented reflects content uploaded between the first match of the tournament (England v Fiji on Friday 18th September) and the conclusion of the Pool Stage (11th October 2015).

Seven of the 12 gambling companies uploaded videos to their YouTube channel - betfair, betfred, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Coral, BetVictor and William Hill.  Thirty videos were uploaded to YouTube in total.

User engagement with YouTube videos
The data presented in Table 1 illustrates that in terms of user engagement the video uploaded by BetVictor had been viewed the most, followed by content uploaded by betfair, Paddy Power, Ladbrokes, William Hill, betfred and Coral.

Table 1: User engagement with YouTube videos from 18th September to 11th October 2015

	Betfair	Betfred	Ladbrokes	Paddy Power	Coral	BetVictor	William Hill
No. of subscribers to the YouTube channel	9,324	517	1,317	10,965	554	446	Unknown
No. of videos posted	12	4	6	4	2	1	1
Total no. of views	55,835	108	6,879	8,002	89	275,820	985
Range of views	64-14,485	8-53	245-4,722	606-4,689	8-68	-	-
Total no. of likes	19	0	19	28	0	0	9
Range of likes	0-12	-	1-15	4-10	-	-	-

Postings by Ladbrokes, William Hill, Betfair, Betfred and BetVictor all contained visual representations of the sports betting company names and their associated logos.  Paddy Power communicated its company name via audio.  The videos posted by Coral did not contain either the company name or its logo.

Creative strategies employed within YouTube videos

The most popular creative strategy used within content uploaded to YouTube was wagering promotion, followed by comedy/parody, advertisement and history.  Seventy percent of postings contained a wagering promotion (see Table 2). 

Table 2: Creative strategies used within content uploaded to YouTube by gambling company

	Betfair	Ladbrokes	Betfred	Paddy Power	Coral	BetVictor	William Hill	Totals
Wagering promotion	10	0	4	3	2	1	1	21
Comedy/Parody	1	6	0	4	0	0	0	11
Advertisement	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	2
History	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1

The manner in which wagering promotions were conveyed to viewers varied between betting companies.  

William Hill’s video promoted mobile betting via their gambling app and the opportunity to bet in-play.  BetVictor‘s video offered the opportunity to “win 20% more on handicap trebles”.  These two videos were advertisements that directly made reference to rugby either by showing rugby players or mentioning the tournament. 

Four betting companies offered predictions with regards to the tournament.  Coral’s videos contained predictions for the England versus Australia and Ireland versus Italy matches. 

Betfair’s videos employed a conversational style and showed two former rugby players – Lawrence Dellagio (85 England caps) and Keith Wood (58 Ireland caps) discussing various aspects of the 2015 Rugby World Cup.  In seven videos the players voiced predictions and offered tips with regards to the outcomes of specific matches – typically which team would win and by how many points.  In other videos the players made predictions about who would be the top try scorer in the tournament, who would be the top points scorer and which team would win the Rugby World Cup.  None of the videos contained odds, but at the end of each video viewers could "Bet now" by clicking on a link that opened the betfair website.  

The format of Betfred’s videos was an interview style.  Mark Cueto, who has achieved 55 caps for England was interviewed by a Betfred employee.  Within all of the videos Mark Cueto voiced his predictions of who would win certain matches and during the video odds were shown to viewers of the outcome of the match together with handicap betting odds. 

Paddy Power employed parody to convey its wagering predictions.  A recent news story concerning the killing of Cecil the Lion by an American dentist seemingly providing the inspiration for the videos.  In the videos a man adopts the character of an American dentist who predicts the winner of three Rugby World Cup matches by pretending to shoot an item which is associated with a country.  For example, the character pretends to shoots a kangaroo in order to convey to the viewers that he predicts England to win the match against Australia.  Paddy Power is arguably known for its provocative advertisements.  In 2014, the Advertising Standards Authority received 5,525 complaints about one of Paddy Power’s advertisements, making the ad the most complained about to date (Advertising Standards Authority, 2015).  In relation to the videos concerning the Rugby World Cup, it might be that they could be considered by some viewers as distasteful or condoning or encouraging violence. 

The creative strategy employed by Ladbrokes for its videos was comedy.  In these videos, a former rugby player – Austin Healey, who achieved 51 caps for England, is involved in a competition with Jimmy Bullard, a former football player.  The aim of the competition is to find out whether footballers or rugby players are the “true gentlemen of sport” by taking part in three challenges.  

Responsible gambling messages within YouTube videos

Of the 30 videos, only 13 (43.3%) contained a responsible gambling message.  All of betfair's videos contained a responsible gambling message, which appeared at the end of each video and comprised the phrases "Please gamble responsibly", "18+" and the website "www.gambleaware.co.uk".  In addition the video uploaded by William Hill also contained a responsible gambling message - the caption "When the fun stops stop" appeared at the end of the video together with "gambleaware.co.uk" and "18+".  None of the other videos contained a responsible gambling message.      

Conclusions

YouTube is an online platform used by a number of gambling companies for promotional reasons.  Ladbrokes used YouTube content to indirectly promote its services through comedy, humour, celebrities and visual representations of its logo and company name.  Such promotional material may not be clearly identified as advertisements by viewers.  Other gambling companies directly promoted its services by using celebrities, humour, parody, conversation and interviews to offer viewers predictions, odds, access to the gambling company's betting website and use of mobile betting services.  

The lack of responsible gambling messages within the videos was also noticeable.  When responsible gambling messages were included within the YouTube content the onus was often on the viewer to visit another website in order to obtain further information. The videos uploaded by betfred, Coral, Paddy Power and Ladbrokes did not contain a responsible gambling message.   Coral, Paddy Power and Ladbrokes are industry members of The Senet Group  - an independent body set up to promote responsible gambling standards and ensure that the marketing of gambling is socially responsible (https://senetgroup.org.uk/).  The Senet Group's website states that "since 1st January 2015, our member companies have carried “WHEN THE FUN STOPS, STOP” on their TV and other forms of advertising including online and in betting shops. This represents the most visible warning yet to be carried by the industry" (https://senetgroup.org.uk/advertising-campaign/).  Compared to advertising, there are fewer restrictions with regards to the use of social media.  However, given that the videos uploaded by Coral, Paddy Power, Ladbrokes and betfred (not a member of The Senet Group) are  arguably promoting gambling brands, this raises issues concerning whether certain social media content  constitutes advertising, whether such content is clearly identifiable as marketing communications, whether such content should contain responsible gambling messages and how the impact of gambling marketing via social media can  be monitored in order to gauge its impact on the public.  As a result such issues do not solely relate to how betting is being promoted via YouTube during the 2015 Rugby World Cup, but more widely to the promotion of gambling per se via this particular social media platform.  

I hope that you found this post interesting.  My next post will examine evidence from Facebook concerning the 2015 Rugby World Cup and the marketing of betting.  

Regards,

Stephanie